"On Han unification: the Japanese reluctance to this is partly because they're being told "Some of your national literature needs to die so that our data standard can live. Deal." and partly because they're being told "What's with all the resistance, you xenophobic bastards, get with the effing program already.", generally by people who they perceive as not quite getting the issue."

As I understand it, the story of Han unification is quite a bit more complex than that, and not nearly so one-sided as you make it out to be. See this article (which seems rather balanced in its treatment) for an example:

http://www.jbrowse.com/text/unij.html